Aaron Storck

“Take a chip! Take a soda! Together we can do this, together we can make it through nuclear war, genetic engineering,…feudal systems!” So rants the talking head in Aaron Storck’s 2009 video New Ministries. The humorously absurd and staggeringly schizophrenic character plays dominant roles in Storck’s artwork, consistently causing viewers to ask: Who is this person and what the hell is he preaching?

Adorned with a conical, star-studded hat and shiny robe, the wizard-like character often delivers rambling, almost non-sensical speeches with mundane props—trash, brand-name drinks and snacks—to an off-screen audience. In other scenarios, he hunkers down in the woods shooting guns and proselytizing. While the meaning is vague, the message is clear. With sharp wit, Storck’s magical showman spoofs on the notion of the artist as shaman or mythological genius. The clichés of mystery, power, and eccentricity often associated with artists—and with such popular Kansas lore as the lone cowboy or Dorothy’s wizard—are undermined by this unbalanced personality.

More broadly, Storck challenges anyone in a self-proclaimed position of power. Spouting passionately and fearlessly, the wizard astutely parodies anyone—politician, religious fundamentalist, or liberal extremist—claiming to speak the truth. This, of course, begs the question: How does one discern between artifice and authenticity in our contemporary culture? As a New Yorker now living in Lawrence, Kansas, Storck employs the mystery of a wild wizard to address and revel in the contradictions he finds in his new place and in the broader human condition.

-Christopher Cook, Director, Salina Arts Center

WIZARD LUNCHEON:

aaron storck, are you serious?

Alaska Noyes

Not a banquet or a feast, not a dinner or even a lunch but a Wizard Luncheon. What an absurd mental image, incongruous and anachronistic. I mean, wizards are from another time or realm, a far away place both magical and dangerous. A luncheon on the other hand - how more pedestrian and commonplace can you get? Banal but certainly not altogether benign, the luncheon always implies an agenda. This is not merely a social outing, oh no, there is work to be done. There will most certainly be a spiel or a pitch. Buying a time-share, joining a church, or being wrangled into some other commitment is the risk you willingly take for the promise of free food. So, who is this Wizard, why is he hosting a luncheon? What is the agenda?

The Wizard is the protagonist at the heart of Aaron Storck's theatrical mise-en-scene. Exaggerated and over-the-top, he dons the most ostentatious of wizard garb, burns incense, mutters invocations, and eats Doritos. He is at once inane and intelligent, powerful and innocuous, entertaining and enlightening. He is an artist, a philosopher, a public access evangelist, he is a cultural theorist, a politician, and a scientist. He is a complex character used by Storck to examine and question a complex world.

What is the role of the artist? Questioning the act of making art through the act of making art, like thinking about thinking, can really make your mind hurt. Through the medium of the Wizard, Storck breaches this dense topic while maintaining a sense of humor, a slight inward glance of self-mockery. With his bumbling incantations and ridiculous props, the Wizard is a stand-in for Storck himself as the artist/creator. No matter how absurd he seems to us, The Wizard truly believes in himself, his visions, his power, his magic. I would suggest Storck believes in the power of the artist but also that this very power stems from its ability to question itself. Bruce Nauman, when asked if he believed in the statement of his 1967 neon spiral sign, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths, responded, "I don't know; I think we should leave that open".

What does it mean to be alive today in a postmodern society? Or, if you follow the latest manifesto proposed by French theorist Nicolas Bourriaud, what does it mean to be alive in an 'altermodern' society? Supposedly 'postmodernism is dead' (Bourriaud 2009), the latest in a series of theoretic revenge killings: the 'end of humanism' (Fukuyama 1992), the 'death of man' (Foucault 1994), the 'death of painting' and even the 'end of art' (Danto 1998). We seem to have made a decisive rift with our past, a systematic deconstruction of its ideals. In the wake of all this, however, comes a deep uncertainty of what the future holds. Storck uses the Wizard as a platform from which to proselytize while keeping himself and his own morals at a safe distance. He dives head first into such heavy topics as global warming, genetic engineering, and nuclear war all the while espousing his 'Advancement Theory'. One of the posits reads, "Morality and ethical constructs are misconstrued as being more relevant and important than they actually are. Dreams of moral refinement, achievement of lasting peace, universal justice, etc. will remain unfulfilled and unverified by necessity and reality". I have no doubt Storck believes in these Post-Moral ideas. However, by using the bumbling ridiculous Wizard character to convey them, he maintains just as strong a belief in questioning these ideas. He maintains a reverence for such heady thinkers as Foucault, Danto, and Bourriaud while questioning their power and influence.  They are, in a way, very much like Storck's Wizard; inane and intelligent, powerful and innocuous, entertaining and enlightening.

What is natural and what isn't? Storck grew up in NYC spending summers with family in rural Kansas. This dichotomous upbringing could account for his interest in the melding of the natural and artificial. His photo-based works, installations and videos are rife with examples. Glossy plastic fruits contrast decaying organic ones. Taxidermy animals sit next to toy versions. He allows these seemingly disparate items to reveal a fundamentally inclusive definition of nature: the sum total of all things in time and space, the entire physical universe. The Wizard expands our definition of nature to include any instincts, desires, drives, or appetites no matter how shameful or absurd. At times he cynically directs our attention to the darker side of human behavior, acting as a mirror to our ignorance while holding his own judgment in abeyance.

What happens when everything is nature and nature is always right? The Wizard loves such stupid products as Mountain Dews and Slim Jims. Artificially colored, sweetened and bereft of nutritional value, he positions them right along the most natural of natural foods. He embraces Walmart, chaos theory, and global warming, seeing no inherent flaw within humans' course of civilization and progress. We are nature, developed over thousands of years of genetic evolution and our social constructs, by extension, are also nature. In his book The Selfish Gene (1976), the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins used the term meme to describe a unit of human cultural transmission analogous to the gene, arguing that replication also happens in cultural evolution. The Wizard does not think everything will be fine and dandy, he does not attempt to assuage any horrendous predictions of global warming. He simply believes that pain, suffering, and morally abject activities have always been part of human existence and have stood the test of time. Memetically speaking, our morally abject appetites are highly evolved traits and are here for a reason. Storck has the ability to push forth these ideas while keeping his distance. With the use of the Wizard questioning the validity of these thoughts as soon as they are posited.

So what is the agenda to this Wizard luncheon? As I see it: To ask questions, to fearlessly offer answers, which must in turn be questioned in new compelling ways. To offer food for thought, a little entertainment. The Wizard and Aaron Stock are simply trying to make some semblance of this complex world and, of course, to engage in a little self-mythologizing while the self-mythologizing is good.

Alaska Noyes is a freelance curator and writer Living in Kansas City, MO. He has been a contributing writer for Review Magazine and Juxtapoz.com and is currently a candidate for the Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship.